Coolness. A few people have it, others don’t, and most of us try to pretend we do. But no matter how cool we try to be, there is always someone who has something awesomely retro and forgotten about, which makes them so much cooler than you. Chatterrings,  the Fresh Prince Of Bel Air theme song, and the recent skinny jean revival all spring to mind. Anthony Wong’s 1990 Honda Civic is another one of these things.

The Honda EF9 Civic was the first of the Civic family to get the DOHC VTEC powerplant in factory trim, 120kw of power in a car that weighs only around 1000kgs, was incredibly fast back in the 90′s, and they can still be competitive today with the right mods!

Like all fads though, the EF9 Civic was soon all but forgotten about as Honda brought out new models with more technology and more power, surviving only in the garages of a) Elderly ladies who were totally unaware of the sleeper they had – due to never driving them above 4000rpm – and b) die-hard Honda fanatics. I actually met Ants, the owner of this Civic, just before I purchased my own EF9!

Ants first laid eyes on the Civic back in 2002, stumbling across the de-registered Honda slowly rusting away in Hamilton with a seized gearbox. Seeing the potential for a nice simple daily driver, Ants’ flatmate picked it up for a good price, and the work began. The rust was cut out, gearbox rebuilt, and soon enough the Civic was back on the road, still looking rough as all hell, but being used as a daily.

A few years passed, and Ants had the opportunity to buy the EF9 himself. Knowing the history of the car, and being a Honda fan, he couldn’t pass it up. The ownership paperwork was done, and the Civic moved into Ants’ garage for a full strip down and rebuild. He had a vision of a clean, simple car, with a fairly stock engine, and some simple, effective cosmetic mods. First in line was the body. 20 years of NZ weather had left the paint in a sorry state. To fit with the theme he had in mind, Ants chose a very cool factory Honda colour, and then had Paul at Terry Andrews Car Painters add some custom touches to make it a total one off. The little Honda was trailered down to the paint shop where Paul layed down the custom green. I have even managed to find a shitty cellphone pic of it outside in the sun for the first time…

Once Ants was happy with the finish, it was trailered home again where the assembly took place. Ants had gone to a lot of trouble sourcing parts for this build, collecting them from all over. He even pieced together a complete set of OEM badges and decals after scouring sites here and overseas. The stock B16a engine was freshened up with some OEM parts, with some bolt ons thrown in for good measure, and a pair of Civic Type R cams were thrown in before the engine was re-assembled. Ants was going for a US-influenced engine bay, and this meant spending hours hand-polishing many of the parts like the head and intake manifold. He also decided to de-loom the engine bay for a clean look. Again, this requires many hours of monotonous work extending and soldering wires, not to mention moving the fuse box out of the engine bay and housing it up under the dash.

With the engine side of things complete, it was time to move on to the wheels & suspension. Ants likes his cars low, so once again a custom set up was in order, lowering springs simply were not going to do the job. After checking out a few overseas Honda sites, Ants decided that Koni Yellow shocks with Skunk2 coilover sleeves were the way to go, of course with extra circlip grooves cut in! He also shipped over a set of Ground Control Extended Top Hats from the USA, for a bit of extra suspension travel.

This was one of the best purchases for the car, as it allowed him to run a cateye-killer height, while still having a good amount of suspension travel, something you don’t usually find in a low car.

Having a respectable ride height was essential for running the wheels Ants had in mind….Work Meisters. You don’t usually see these wheels on Hondas here in NZ, but overseas they are a pretty popular choice. The 2 piece S1s , at 16×7.5 and 16×8, were a pretty tight fit in the Civic guards, but Ants has made it look easy.

With the Civic going and looking  better than when it left the factory in 1990, Ants turned his attention to the interior. Here he has just added some classic touches, such as Recaro Fishnet seats, a Woodgrain Nardi wheel, and a simple sound system for him to play Major Flavours 2 …I don’t think it has left the CD player since.

With the interior fitted, the Civic was complete. The paint on it was still curing as he set off on a 2000km road trip to Christchurch and back for the annual NZHondas South Island Mega Meet (always a good time, I have heard there was a brawl the year Ants attended, go figure) and the Civic performed flawlessly, although there was a small incident when driving the Civic off the ferry – the exhaust decided to stay on the ferry instead. However, this didn’t stop the EF from picking up the Top Gear challenge award for making it there and back without a major breakdown.

All his hard work paid off, and Ants has transformed this car from stock shopping trolley into a flawless street cruiser. This Civic is definitely a cool throwback to a simpler time.

Unfortunately, not long after he completed the Civic, Ants decided to put it up for sale to invest the money in starting up his business…which some of you may have heard of, it goes by the name of Wongs Kitchen. However, I can tell you that he has since purchased one of his former projects back, and the FROBACK plate will live on.

Words – Wizz

Photo credits – David Fan @ DFimages

Bad Photos – Anthony Wong and his faithful but well used Nokia N95